Meaning Beyond Nihilism

Race Matters was written one year after the Los Angeles riots of 1993. In his book Professor Cornel West addresses issues of race relations that still need treatment today. West gives sharp assessment of racial distictives in America as well as the systems, morality (or lack of), and history that have perpetuated a discord between different people groups.

While many factors pose a hindrance to race relations, West underscores the destructive nature of Nihilism to the person and to the larger community.

West writes: Nihilism is the lived experience of coping with a life of horrifying meaninglessness, hopelessness, and (most important) lovelessness. The frightening result is a numbing detachment from others and a self-destructive disposition toward the world...In fact, the major enemy of black survival in America has been and is neither oppression nor exploitation but rather nihilistic threat-that is, loss of hope an absence of meaning. For as long as hope remains and meaning is preserved, the possibility of overcoming oppression stays alive.

What does it mean for someone to say that their life "has meaning"? How is "meaning" found? As people of hope, how do we live lives so that meaning is preserved of all people?